Book picks similar to
Return to Isis by Jean Stewart
lesbian
lgbt
sci-fi
fantasy
The Psychology of Time Travel
Kate Mascarenhas - 2018
But just as they are about to debut their creation, one of them suffers a breakdown, putting the whole project—and future of time travel—in jeopardy. To protect their invention, one member is exiled from the team—erasing her contributions from history.Fifty years later, time travel is a big business. Twenty-something Ruby Rebello knows her beloved grandmother, Granny Bee, was one of the pioneers, though no one will tell her more. But when Bee receives a mysterious newspaper clipping from the future reporting the murder of an unidentified woman, Ruby becomes obsessed: could it be Bee? Who would want her dead? And most importantly of all: can her murder be stopped?Traversing the decades and told from alternating perspectives, The Psychology of Time Travel introduces a fabulous new voice in fiction and a new must-read for fans of speculative fiction and women’s fiction alike.
The Vanished Birds
Simon Jimenez - 2020
Decades of travel through the stars are condensed into mere months for her, though the years continue to march steadily onward for everyone she has ever known. Her friends and lovers have aged past her; all she has left is work. Alone and adrift, she lives only for the next paycheck, until the day she meets a mysterious boy, fallen from the sky.A boy, broken by his past.The scarred child does not speak, his only form of communication the beautiful and haunting music he plays on an old wooden flute. Captured by his songs and their strange, immediate connection, Nia decides to take the boy in. And over years of starlit travel, these two outsiders discover in each other the things they lack. For him, a home, a place of love and safety. For her, an anchor to the world outside of herself.For both of them, a family.But Nia is not the only one who wants the boy. The past hungers for him, and when it catches up, it threatens to tear this makeshift family apart.
The Cybernetic Tea Shop
Meredith Katz - 2016
Her childhood in a migrant worker family has left her uncomfortable with lingering in any one place, so she sticks around just long enough to replenish her funds before she moves on, her only constant companion Joanie, a fierce, energetic Raise hummingbird.Sal is a fully autonomous robot, the creation of which was declared illegal ages earlier due to ethical concerns. She is older than the law, however, at best out of place in society and at worst hated. Her old master is long dead, but she continues to run the tea shop her master had owned, lost in memories of the past, slowly breaking down, and aiming to fulfill her master's dream for the shop.When Clara stops by Sal's shop for lunch, she doesn't expect to find a real robot there, let alone one who might need her help. But as they begin to spend time together and learn more about each other, they both start to wrestle with the concept of moving on…
Elysium
Jennifer Marie Brissett - 2014
The program's data, however, has been corrupted. As the novel's characters struggle to survive apocalypse, they are sustained and challenged by the demands of love in a shattered world both haunted and dangerous.
Children of Eden
Joey Graceffa - 2016
She can never go to school, make friends, or get the eye implants that will mark her as a true member of Eden. Her kaleidoscope eyes will give her away to the ruthless Center government.Outside of Eden, Earth is poisoned and dead. All animals and most plants have been destroyed by a man-made catastrophe. Long ago, the brilliant scientist Aaron Al-Baz saved a pocket of civilization by designing the EcoPanopticon, a massive computer program that hijacked all global technology and put it to use preserving the last vestiges of mankind. Humans will wait for thousands of years in Eden until the EcoPan heals the world.As an illegal second child, Rowan has been hidden away in her family’s compound for sixteen years. Now, restless and desperate to see the world, she recklessly escapes for what she swears will be only one night of adventure. Though she finds an exotic world, and even a friend, the night leads to tragedy. Soon Rowan becomes a renegade on the run.
The Space Between Worlds
Micaiah Johnson - 2020
Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying—from disease, turf wars, or vendettas they couldn’t outrun. Cara’s life has been cut short on 372 worlds in total.On this Earth, however, Cara has survived. Identified as an outlier and therefore a perfect candidate for multiverse travel, Cara is plucked from the dirt of the wastelands. Now she has a nice apartment on the lower levels of the wealthy and walled-off Wiley City. She works—and shamelessly flirts—with her enticing yet aloof handler, Dell, as the two women collect off-world data for the Eldridge Institute. She even occasionally leaves the city to visit her family in the wastes, though she struggles to feel at home in either place. So long as she can keep her head down and avoid trouble, Cara is on a sure path to citizenship and security.But trouble finds Cara when one of her eight remaining doppelgängers dies under mysterious circumstances, plunging her into a new world with an old secret. What she discovers will connect her past and her future in ways she could have never imagined—and reveal her own role in a plot that endangers not just her world, but the entire multiverse.
Pieces
G. Benson - 2017
Ollie, also sixteen, has a life that’s all about parents, school pressure, friends and dreams of summer. The two fall into each other’s orbit, and one kiss changes everything. Ollie is captivated… but then Carmen vanishes. When they cross paths months later, everything is different.This young adult lesbian romance novel looks at what we’re prepared to sacrifice for those we care about.
The Politics of Love
Jen Jensen - 2020
Everything's totally fine, except that it really isn't. Shelley manages depression and crippling anxiety because of the secret she can never reveal: she's gay.Rand Thomas is a psychotherapist, transgender rights activist, and political liberal. Widowed and struggling with her wife's toxic parents, Rand isn't going to allow herself to love again.When Shelley and Rand meet in Manhattan, neither one expects to find that the other is exactly who they need.
Welcome to Ruby's
K.C. Luck - 2018
The bar is where they all go to commiserate over drinks about crappy jobs, wrecked relationships, and life in general. Everyone is family and everyone comes to Ruby’s. Even though her job sucks, Allie’s life appears to be taking an especially good turn when a gorgeous dark-haired stranger comes walking into Ruby’s and sweeps her off her feet. As much as she wants to deny how she feels, the chemistry between them is an eleven on a scale of one to ten. Struggling through a nasty divorce, Vivian Wade is not looking for any more complications in her already crazy life, but when she goes north to Portland to check on business, she sees a blonde woman who takes her breath away. Although a relationship is the last thing she wants, she cannot deny what her body is telling her. When their worlds collide, all starts perfectly, until Allie learns Ruby’s has been sold to an investor. A woman from Los Angeles, named Vivian, who plans to change everything.
Night Life
S.J. Hartsfield - 2020
She knows the lines, the moves, and she definitely knows better than to fall for a client. But when she’s hired for a night with the gorgeous, mysterious Diana Silver, her professionalism can’t hold a candle to the heat between them.Diana Silver is already overworked and undervalued by her wealthy parents, and now they’re pressuring her to date a “suitable” colleague. Hiring an escort would never have occurred to her, but when her best friend treats her to a relaxing night with Ronnie, sparks fly.Diana hires Ronnie again. And again. Soon, the women don’t have an arrangement so much as a full-blown affair. But money can’t buy everything, and Ronnie can’t risk blurring the lines between personal and professional, no matter the reward. It’ll take more than a healthy paycheck to turn their steamy nights into a life together—and if they try, it could cost them everything.
Maze-Born Trouble
Ginn Hale - 2016
Lake Harmaa.P.I. Lake Harmaa escaped the darkness and intense gravity of Sisu Space Station’s Maze Sector by turning traitor and spying for the Feds during the war.He has no intention of risking his neck by going back down into those depths, where there’s a price on his head and more than a few souls who wouldn’t mind him turning up dead.But when he’s framed for a brutal murder, Lake realizes he must return to the Maze and settle old scores.
Rulebreaker
Cathy Pegau - 2011
Smash-and-grab thieving doesn't lend itself to getting chummy with the victims, and Liv hasn't met anyone on the mining colony of Nevarro worth knowing, anyway. So it's easy to follow her Rules. Until her ex, Tonio, shows up with an invitation to join him on the job of a lifetime. Until Zia Talbot, the woman she's supposed to deceive, turns Liv's expectations upside down in a way no woman ever has. Until corporate secrets turn deadly. But to make things work with Zia, Liv has to do more than break her Rules, and the stakes are higher than just a broken heart . . . 89,000 words
A Memory Called Empire
Arkady Martine - 2019
But no one will admit that his death wasn't an accident—or that Mahit might be next to die, during a time of political instability in the highest echelons of the imperial court.Now, Mahit must discover who is behind the murder, rescue herself, and save her Station from Teixcalaan's unceasing expansion—all while navigating an alien culture that is all too seductive, engaging in intrigues of her own, and hiding a deadly technological secret—one that might spell the end of her Station and her way of life—or rescue it from annihilation.
Waiting on a Bright Moon
J.Y. Yang - 2017
When a dead body comes through her portal at a time of growing rebellion, Xin is drawn deep into a station-wide conspiracy along with Ouyang Suqing, one of the station’s mysterious, high-ranking starmages.
Warchild
Karin Lowachee - 2002
Thus begins a desperate odyssey of terror and escape that takes Jos beyond known space to the homeworld of the strits, Earth's alien enemies. To survive, the boy must become a living weapon and a master spy. But no training will protect Jos in a war where every hope might be a deadly lie, and every friendship might hide a lethal betrayal. And all the while he will face the most grueling trial of his lifebecoming his own man.